


Betrayals

by DieAstra



Category: The Americans (TV 2013)
Genre: Implied/Referenced Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-12
Updated: 2020-01-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:35:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22228762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DieAstra/pseuds/DieAstra
Summary: Philip’s thoughts and feelings during the interrogation scene of episode 1x06 “Trust Me”
Comments: 2
Kudos: 16





	Betrayals

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to meridian_rose for the beta!

He was forced out of the car, blindly stumbling along in the strong grip of the men as he couldn’t see anything. They stripped off his jacket, then forced him down on a chair, bound his hands at the back and his legs to the chair legs.

The hood was taken off his head and Philip could breathe more freely. He found himself in a warehouse. Bright lights were blinding him. A guy in a white shirt was approaching him silently. 

“What am I doing here? Who are you?”

Philip made sure to put the right note of fear into his voice when he asked those questions. He got no answer. Instead the guy lit a cigarette and calmly took a chair to sit down opposite of him.

“What do you want?”

“You, Mr. Jennings. We want you.”

His voice sounded almost bright.

“My name’s not Jennings.”

He’d stay in role as long as he could, act like Clark would act if he suddenly was put into a place so much out of his comfort zone.

Maybe this all was a mistake. Maybe he could get away with it. He’d just have to play his role convincingly.

But then the guy started to list Philip’s age, wife, children, workplace.

Philip went absolutely still when he realized he could drop his act. This was it. After all those years, they had finally been found. He had no idea how this could have happened. He clamped his mouth shut. He was not going to say anything further. When the guy took off his glasses and wig, it felt like being stripped naked. Nothing to hide behind anymore.

*****

It was getting ugly pretty fast. He was pummeled. A lot. The blows concentrated on his upper body which soon felt like one big bruise. Blow after blow landed, hardly giving him any time to breathe in between. He was panting to try and catch some air.

He managed to only grunt with the pain. He was not going to give the guy the satisfaction of crying out. Not until he started to cut off any fin- 

Don’t go there, Philip. Concentrate.

He zoned out and stared straight ahead. Looking at the fog his breathing created in the cold air. Letting the guy’s talking wash over his head. It was not important. He was asking for the usual stuff, KGB agents, dead-drop sites, communication protocols. Philip noticed with satisfaction that he was panting, too. That’s what beating another man does to you, bastard.

He kept his eyes down, refusing to make eye contact. He couldn’t help flinching and averting his face when it seemed like another attack would start, but this time it was only feigned. The guy was playing with him. Philip refused to let it get to him. He was trained for this. He knew how to withstand.

“We both know where this is gonna go, Mr. Jennings. It’s up to you how long we do this. There will be no spy trades under this president.” 

Philip looked him right in the eyes then.

“I’m not a spy.”

But the guy had a tape with Philip’s voice from when he had been at Martha’s, and he had passports of all his identities. Where did he get those things from? They were not stupid enough to have them lying around the house. They were stored in a safe location. If they had gotten to that Philip wondered who else would be compromised. Obviously this ran deeper than he originally thought.

Then he remembered. Just the other night he had met with Granny and she told him how quickly the FBI encryption codes had been changed after they just had gotten them. There was a mole somewhere. Someone was talking. 

One of their own people was feeding the FBI information.

Now the guy was rambling about his children. Paige and Henry, who at this moment were waiting at the mall to be picked up by their mother. Philip’s blood ran cold. Had they already gotten to them as well? What would happen to them? Could they indeed be sent to Russia as the guy was saying?

“Go to hell.”

He said it softly but he managed to put all his loathing and contempt into this sentence. He was satisfied how even his voice sounded. Nothing betrayed his inner turmoil.

He’d resigned himself to whatever was in store for him now, but the thought that his children would suffer because of him was unbearable. Had it been worth the sacrifice? That’s what he was asking himself more and more lately. What had they achieved?

“Bring her in!”

Philip’s heart dropped right into his stomach when two other guys dragged in Elizabeth. Of course he should not have been surprised that they got her too but somehow he had hoped she had been able to escape, to grab Paige and Henry and run. She was one hell of a fighter. He was sure she must have at least taken one of them down before being overwhelmed.

Their eyes locked when she was pushed to her knees. It hurt him to see the bruise forming on her temple. Yeah, she definitely had put up a fight. That was his Elizabeth. He felt pride. For a moment time seemed to stand still.

They were in this together. They would get through it with as much dignity as they could.

As she was dragged away he looked after her till she went out of sight. He knew that she was able to handle herself but that did not make it any easier to bear.

In the meantime the two other guys had dragged in a zinc tub and now took turns filling it with water from buckets they brought in from somewhere outside.

Philip and Mr. White Shirt watched silently. Clearly the anticipation of what was to come was meant to be a psychological kind of torture. It gave Philip time to mentally prepare himself. He took in some deep breaths, trying to hold the air in for as long as he could. He’d once targeted a guy that was a diver who had told him about this technique.

Finally he was grabbed and released from the chair. He briefly thought about making a move then but it was three against one and his hands still were bound behind his back. And the guys had guns. He was under no illusion he’d make it out of here alive so he might have risked it anyway if it wasn’t for Elizabeth. As long as he didn’t know where she was or what had happened to her, he had to hold out. Maybe they had a slight chance if they worked together.

He was made to kneel before the tub. The hard ground was digging into his knees. Then the guy roughly grabbed his hair and pushed his head down. Before he hit the water surface he took a last deep breath and tried to hold it but his head was forced under for so long that eventually he ran out of air and had to let go. That was the exact moment his head was raised, just far enough for him to grab a quick breath and again he went under. And again. And again.

“And?”

When he finally was let go he just collapsed, panting and coughing. Then he was put back on the chair. He didn’t struggle, just let it happen. He felt utterly exhausted.

How late was it? For how long had this been going on? It was hard to tell in here with the artificial light.

*****

It was cold in the warehouse. Philip was shivering. The wet shirt clung to his chest, and there were still ice-cold driblets from his hair running down his back.

Sitting in the same position for so long had started to be uncomfortable a long time ago. The edges of the chairback were digging into his upper arms. He’d constantly been trying to get out of his bonds but his struggles only made them tighter and now they were chafing his wrists. He continued to try to break them but it was hurting.

Not as much as his left side though. At least one rib must be cracked. He tried to breathe only shallowly now. He’d also needed to pee for quite a while but that was the least of his worries.

It seemed like an eternity before they finally brought back in Elizabeth. He quickly checked her over, she didn’t seem to be hurt any further. So far. But now it would be her turn with the water tub. The old ‘it hurts you more when you have to watch’ trick. Except it would not work. On either of them.

“There are no happy endings here. You can help her, you know? Talk now. Save her a lot of pain.”

The more the guy tried to taunt him the calmer Philip got. He was back to staring straight ahead at the ground, refusing to let anything touch him. He couldn’t afford it. Not even for Elizabeth. He was sure she was doing the same. They had learnt how to deal with such situations.

From the corner of his eyes he caught the guy’s gesture when he turned to the two guys holding Elizabeth down and said, “Up to you.”

That’s when Philip chose to speak. Time to end this one way or the other. It had been going on for long enough.

“What do you think you’re gonna get from us?”

He said it softly, almost as if speaking to himself. He was not trying to reason with the guy, just making a statement.

The guy gave a wink to leave Elizabeth alone and eagerly turned to Philip.

“Why don’t you tell me?”

“Fine, I will tell you.”

Philip looked him straight in the eye then.

“Nothing. You get nothing from us. She’s trained for this. So am I.”

His voice was flat, matter-of-factly.

Try as they might, Americans never would be able to understand Russians. Their pride. Their willingness to sacrifice. Millions had died in the Great Patriotic War. The country was still going strong. It would survive losing two more people. They were not important. What was important was their cause. It would be carried on by others.

Elizabeth joined in.

“We’ll die before we’ll talk.”

“We know how to do that.”

It was as if the guy hadn’t even listened. Again he motioned for Elizabeth’s head to be dunked in.

When all of a sudden a very familiar voice sounded up from the darkness behind her.

“That’s enough. I’m sorry. We had to know if you were the mole, if we could trust you.”

For the second time today Philip went absolutely still. For a moment he wasn’t sure whether to trust his ears. Was this…?

Then the woman stepped out of the shadows and told the guy to release his bonds while bending down to do the same with Elizabeth.

It was indeed the elderly woman they knew as Granny. Who they were supposed to trust. And who was supposed to trust them. Who was supposed to protect them.

“If you could trust us?”

This time Philip’s voice did waver. The thought that they had gone through all of this for nothing was unbearable. How dare she even think they would be able to do something like this!

He listened in horror when she rambled on, trying to justify what she had done in order to find the mole.

Of course. It all made sense now. Why he had been beaten with a phone book instead of fists. To leave as few marks as possible.

He couldn’t see Elizabeth’s face as she had turned her head around but from the tenseness of her shoulders he could see she was as shocked as he was. Now she was asking whether they had had permission for this.

When she didn’t like the answer, she acted. Elbowing Granny and then went on to hit her. Philip followed suit as well, pushing the guy in the white shirt over and grabbing his gun. He let Elizabeth blow off some steam, but when she continued to hold Granny’s head underwater he finally told her “That’s enough!”

But Elizabeth was not done yet. She went back to pummeling Granny’s face.

“Tell whoever approved this that your face is a present from me to them! Show them your face! Show it to them!”

Granny’s face was a mess. Philip managed to get his car keys back and grab Elizabeth. They had to get out of here, and fast. Otherwise he couldn’t guarantee for anything. Quickly they bound the guy to the chair then ran outside.

But it was outside, when he thought that everything finally was over, when the biggest shock waited for Philip. He was surprised to learn that Elizabeth had not been questioned at all. Just thrown into a room with pictures of their kids. That’s when he realized. His blood ran ice-cold.

“You told them.”

It was not a question.

“What? What are you talking about?”

“You told them I considered defecting. That’s why this is happening.”

He couldn’t believe it. This was the third betrayal of the day, and it was the one that hurt the most. Elizabeth, of all people. His wife. His friend. Just when they had started to truly come together as a married couple. He thought things would get better from now on, not worse. 

He lost it when she tried to justify it.

“I fit in! I fit in, like I was supposed to! And, yes, I liked it. So what? I was supposed to be able to trust you, and I did. And I shouldn't have. I never should have.”

All the emotions he had buried inside him during the past hours now were bursting out of him. And he couldn’t stop them.

He was done here. Done. But he still had another job to do. Martha would be wondering why Clark never turned up as promised. He had to make amends with her. Without letting her see inside him. Truly seeing him.

When the hell had his life started to suck so much?

The End


End file.
